Inexpensive Web Hosting and Other Stupid Things

Today it appears as if everyone and their mother is providing Web hosting for sale. Don’t get the wrong idea, I believe in good competition more than anybody and I am serious about supporting this idea. Irregardless, without knowing a thing about business and how to develop and maintain it, some people still think they can start a web hosting business.

I am always shocked at hosting services that offer extremely cheap prices. You can find many offers from individuals that provide web hosting at the low cost of just $1 a year. Yes, you read right, one dollar for an entire year of service. When you stop to think that the cost of established services ranges from $60 to $100 annually just for basic service, this appears like a good deal, yet is it truly?

Let’s do some simple math. Hypothetically speaking a reasonable amount of clients a provider should get while having a small web hosting business is 1,000. If the owner sells his services at a buck each, he will bring in a outstanding $1,000 in just one year. Do you believe he can offer quality service, support and upgrades for this price? I am hard pressed to think he will have enough for food alone!

This can still be a profitable business in you have enough customers. All right, since I’m feeling good now, I’ll go on with this instance. Provider-for-a-dollar getting 10,00 customers; now that’s a goal worth having! In that case, the amount is an income of $10,000. Do you feel that a business will be successful with this much of an income for a year? Picture what the expenses would be of having 10,000 customers. It would only take the cost of power lines, rent, and power to suck all the money away from a small income.

As ever, the human mind is marvelous and searches for a solution. Clients that buy these services reason that if they get the deal for a year, it doesn’t matter if the provider goes out of business next year, which is most likely. They already got the service almost for free. And again I ask, is this true?

You will lose access to your services, email addresses and your web site, if your provider goes out of business. Getting a new service takes a couple of days no matter the scenario. Of course, this only applies if you don’t screw up and obtain a domain name from the same provider.

In that case, you may even lose your domain name and will have to get a new one. Imagine the time wasted just notifying all your clients about your new email address. What if you lost important emails and documents too? Do you think this is worth the risk?

When you buy your next web hosting service, consider the support services, the promptness in answering your emails and phone calls and the time the provider has been in the market. Yes, do check the price too, but if it sounds too good to be true, it may be a good idea to look somewhere else.

But if you insist on getting one of these services for a dollar, we will be happy to help you when your provider disappears, just let’s hope the damage isn’t too bad.

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